Friday 12th February, 2016

Well hello.  Been a while.  I didn’t see this extended break from action coming when the Juror’s Summons landed on my doorstep a few months ago.  The letter said that trials normally finish within a week though they can on rare occasions extend into the next so I should ensure I had two weeks of potential service pencilled in.  But to be honest I just thought I would get a welcome lie in on a Monday, wander in to the Court and sit around for a few hours before being thanked for my time and dismissed.  Didn’t quite work out like that.  The wheels of justice run very slowly indeed and once they have you in the snares they don’t let you go easily.  I’ve been out for a fortnight and a day and sat on two trials.  It’s been a pretty enlightening experience truth be told. 

 

It’s ironic really given I think it was the last time I was talking to you I told you about Bob and various knife incidents.  My first case at Cambridge Crown Court involved a psychiatrically challenged gent who amongst a long list of alleged misdemeanours held a knife to the throat of his landlord and threatened to kill him.  If you are sitting comfortably I’ll begin. 

 

The landlord was a well-meaning old man, single and with no family, who had taken the defendant, some twenty years his junior, under his own roof six or seven years earlier out of sympathy and with other fine intentions no doubt.  During the intervening years, it transpired, the police had been called out to the property on 49 occasions as one breach of the peace followed another.  But things clearly ratcheted up a level last summer after the arrival of two additional guests one of whom was an intriguing, suave and aptly named ( given this saga took place on the outskirts of Newmarket ) American called Jonty Stables. 

 

The defendant’s behaviour became increasingly erratic possibly, it was suggested to us, stirred by jealousy.  He began to extort money from the Good Samaritan as the old boy was described by the Newmarket Herald.  He rampaged aggressively about the place, stole some laptops and also £250 from the purse of a friend of his, an elderly lady who had also been trying to help him find his way in life.  It was a pretty open and shut case in all but one regard. 

 

The afore mentioned American appeared in court as one of three witnesses to the knife incident, but also to testify on a further charge of affray that he claimed he had personally experienced when the defendant appeared in his bedroom in the middle of the night brandishing a knife and threatening all manner of dire injury.  Although he was articulate and smartly dressed something didn’t ring true.  No one else had witnessed the event, but more intriguingly he had difficulty answering a question put to him about how long the knife was.  Comically, when he finally seized upon his spectacle case as being approximately the same size and it was suggested that implied the weapon was perhaps about six inches long, he placed the spectacle case on the floor and measured it against his shoe before concluding that it was indeed about half a foot.  Anyway I had a eureka moment and when I was – and I’m trying not to sound like a swank here – elected Foreman I proposed that though it was clear the drug crazed nutter was guilty of most of the charges he faced perhaps he hadn’t actually held a knife to the throat of the slick American.  And that is what we agreed.  Didn’t matter very much to be honest.  He’s gone down for three years.  Poor guy.  Can’t see what prison is going to do to help.

 

But as for the American I wasted no time, the case having concluded, in googling him to see if my suspicious instincts about him were right.   This is what I found.   

 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/immigration/8857256/Disgraced-film-producer-Johnathan-Bartley-Stables-in-human-rights-claim.html

 

Interesting eh?  Well that is if you are like me, a nosy sort needing a break from markets at the end of pretty tortuous CNY week.  Don’t know about you but this quote from Mr Stables leapt out at me. 

"When you have someone like myself who is nil risk to the public and the Home Office spent thousands of pounds trying to get rid of me, and they apparently don't lift a finger to get rid of someone who holds a knife to someone's throat - that needs to be looked at.” 

Two stories that start and end with knives so that’s tidy and I think we got Mr Stables’ number don’t you?

The second case….well not quite so titillating.  One for over a beer or two at some point. 

Belated KHFC to you and have a lovely weekend.

Friday 22nd January, 2016

If you think you’ve had a gruelling, stressful week, I got home last night to find Sophie still in a slight state after an incident at the dry-cleaners in Newmarket.  She had been handing in Bob’s dinner jacket as it was in need of a bit of a tidy up after various Christmas bashes.  As she handed the jacket over the shop counter there was a loud clunk.  From one of the pockets a startled shop assistant removed a Buck folding hunting knife.  I know.  Bit weird and it would be quite concerning except of the course there is form here.  Furthermore as we talked it through we recalled that the last black tie party he had been at was on the Thurlow Estate following a days pheasant shooting and so there was every need for a knife really. 

 

I havn’t mentioned Bob for a while I feel.  He’s now 18 and in the final stretch at school.   It seems like yesterday we were taking him to Rugby for his interview.  The fact that his two sisters were already there was absolutely no guarantee believe me.  Indeed they stacked the odds against the poor boy being admitted. Hours of preparation and grooming, and £85 spent on a pair of new shoes in an emergency visit to a shop when we got to Rugby, had managed to get him looking vaguely presentable, but as we stood nervously in an austere, wooden floored study with the footsteps of the Headmaster announcing his imminent arrival there was a loud crash as something fell out of Bob’s pocket onto the floor. Thankfully the Head, coming through the door at that very moment, presumed one of us had dropped our mobile phone. For my part I was rather proud at how skilfully and quickly I managed to stoop and retrieve unseen a knife which, even by the demanding standards of Bob’s armoury, had to be described as substantial. 

 

Onto more genteel matters.  I never met the man, the subject of an email below which I received yesterday from my golf club, who has passed away at a tragically young age, but whilst, as you may recall, the overwhelming majority of members of the R&A voted last year in favour of admitting Ladies to the Club, I have my doubts if this person was able to bring himself to do so.

 

The following Notice has been posted on the R&A Members' Website


M V Koc

***********

Members of the Club will be saddened to hear of the death of Mustafa Koc who
died on Thursday 21st January 2016 following a heart attack. Mustafa was 55
years of age and had been a Member of the Club since 2003.

The Funeral will be held in Istanbul on Sunday 24th January 2016.


**********

Burns night on Monday.  Don’t worry.  I’m not going to include one of his poems as I occasionally do to fill up space and annoy you.  But the haggis that Sophie bought was frankly pathetic so after a good lunch today I stopped by Waitrose to pick one up.  Do you know they want to charge you 5p for a carrier bag these days?  But when I told the elderly lady behind the till that I would just pop it in my trouser pocket she convulsed and gave me one for free.

 

I love stories that go full circle don’t you?

 

Bon weekend.  I’ve got Jury Service next week.  Woopity woop to that!  I just googled Cambridge Crown Court and read with interest about an incident there a couple of months ago when a “bare-chested fight” broke out during one of the trials.  What fun.

 

Friday 15th January, 2016

This is not a story that reflects terrifically well on me.  Possibly best left untold.  Oh whatever.  If you can’t have a laugh at your own expense especially in these dark days well what can you laugh about?   I’m hooked on House M.D., episodes of which I watch on Netflix in between reading piles of research on the train home, so I probably am subconsciously on the look-out for rare and exotic health problems.  The reality however, though this may surprise you, is that I have always had a touch of the hypochondriac about me.  And so…..

 

On Wednesday I was having lunch with someone in the canteen upstairs.  It was quite a serious chat we were having really, but suddenly I noticed that my fingers had turned yellow.  I quite forget what we talked about for the next ten minutes so alarmed and distracted was I by this discovery.  I hadn’t been eating tangerines, but I have been a bit worried about my circulation and all I knew was that I had to do a bit of Google-diagnosis as quickly as possible.  And if you search for “why have my finger tips turned yellow” as I did the moment I got back to my desk, I venture you will be concerned by what you find too.  Jaundice is the obvious one, and the note I read suggested if my fingers were yellow I should check other appendages too, but I thought I would spare my desk colleagues that one.  In any case I have been feeling OK in myself all things considered so I moved tentatively on.  And after much investigation and deliberation I decided, conclusively, it must be Hypercarotenemia.

 

A seemingly alarming but usually harmless condition is hypercarotenemia, also called carotenemia and carotenodermia. This is a buildup of beta carotene in the tissue and is usually due to eating too much beta-carotene-rich food, such as carrots, squash, sweet potatoes, oranges and spinach. The condition leads to the skin, especially the palms and the soles on the feet, turning a shade somewhere between yellow and orange. Columbia University’s Health Services department reports that eating as little as three 8-inch carrots daily, for an intake of over 20mg of beta carotene, is enough to set off hypercarotenemia.

 

It fitted.  Not just Jimmy, but now Hen too, have become vegetarians and as they have been home recently we have endured an endless diet of sweet blinking potatoes.  Furthermore I had had roasted root vegetables for lunch the previous day.  So no wonder my body was doing funny things I mused.

 

I was just about to head down to see my friend “Nursey” – that’s another story – in the clinic when a thought struck me.  The night before we had prawn laksa for supper. It was delicious, but Sophie and Lottie both insisted I peeled their prawns.  A messy and somewhat painful business given the amount of hot, rich, turmeric infused sauce involved. I probably should have had a finger bowl immediately to hand.  Suffice to say, taking a look once more at my yellow stained digits, I conceded ruefully, and with not a little embarrassment, that whilst there are no doubt many things wrong with me, hypercarotenemia was not one of them and that the trip to Nursey had better wait for another occasion.

 

Talking about unpronounceable names…..I received an email this week informing me of the arrival of a new colleague on the sales desk in Bangkok.  I worked with him briefly at CIMB as it happens.  His name is Sitichok Tachasirinugune.  Obviously, because I used to live in Thailand, I can get my tongue around that little lot after just a few practice sessions, but you will be relieved to know he is generally referred to, apparently, as “Bob”.  

 

Friday 27th November, 2015

Before I got my Garmin watch and started chasing segments and Karl Procter all sorts of things would come in and, more often than not, out of my mind when I went on my “runs”.  Not so much runs really, on reflection, more meanderings through the Suffolk countryside.  I may have told you that on one such stroll I calculated that if Chinese per capita daily calorific consumption was to increase to 2,500 ( still well shy of that of the US ) the additional demand could be met for one day only by slaughtering three times the number of sheep in New Zealand.  On another came my idea for an upmarket Chinese travel agency which well pre-dated the deluge of outbound tourists.  Why did I just sit on my hands?  Or not buy 4661 JP.

Anyway, the reference to Christmas by the girl in Leon jogged a vague memory.  One day earlier this year, I forget now exactly when, but probably late spring, I had been out for a run when a song came into my head.  When I got home I made a note of it in my iPhone calendar. It had something to do with Christmas I knew that, but what it was or exactly why I had decided to do this slightly strange thing was now a blank.  As I sipped my black Americano and pretended to read our Anchor report on Electric Vehicles, I perused my phone and eventually found the following entry on the 1^st December.  Two words…. “Mary Gauthier”.  I had to resort to Google of course but then I remembered.  See the link below.  I can’t imagine the song helped me run any faster, but it’s sweet, it’s all about me, and it’s going to be my Christmas number 1 this year.  Lame really, but it made me smile between my snuffles. 

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fwmM5hUkaLE

 

Talking of stealing Christmas trees I got home yesterday to find a summons to Jury Service.  Watch out petty criminals of Cambridge.  Suggest you go easy a few weeks before 18^th January comes along.  Not to pre-judge you obviously.

 

Oh…and if you are struggling for present ideas here’s what your typical 21 year old daughter would like, but is not expecting obviously:

 

 

 

 

Friday 13th November, 2015

I think you will agree that I hardly ever whinge, but I have to tell you I’m a bit knacked today.  Long old week.  Doesn’t help that I went back and forward to Edinburgh twice.  Even though I managed to avoid having to go for a run up Arthur’s Seat on Monday morning with my nephew and the fact is of course I love going back to my homeland, putting that Scottish accent on when I’m there takes it out of me a wee bit I don’t mind admitting.  Anyway, if you’re in Edinburgh and havn’t responded yet plans for my party on the evening of the 3^rd December are shaping up well, by which I mean I’ve managed to secure that case of Chasse Spleen 2000, persuaded the curry house to let me bring it in and now all I need to work out is how I’m going to avoid a diplomatic incident when I insist on opening and decanting it myself….there’ll be sediment you see.

Talking of parties, and my, how I enjoy moving from the sublime to the ridiculous, daughter number 2, Jimmy, was back from Bristol for a few days on a “reading” week the first half of which was spent on a jolly in Amsterdam.  But she seems to be working very hard now, manfully tackling an essay on Iconoclasm without asking me to write most of it.  Armed with a degree in Archaeology and Anthropology the world will of course be her oyster and last weekend I thought the moment was ripe for a discussion on what she was thinking of doing when she graduates in 18 months time.  I shouldn’t have really.  “I’m going to learn some real life lessons” she told me.  Her very words. I braced myself.  “I’m going to live in the Caribbean for two to three years.”  Oh man.  What is it about my kids?  

I suppose I should have realised something like this was on the cards.  For some time now she’s been convinced she’s a Rastafarian trapped in a white girl’s body and spent a decent chunk of her gap year on the beaches of St. Lucia ( not saving turtles ).  In my defence this weekend she’s heading up to a 21^st birthday party of a friend of hers who lives in in Castle Howard ( dress theme Surreal ) so I might be forgiven for thinking she was becoming more “Establishmentarian” if you will allow me to use the word a little liberally.   Anyway, her 21^st is also coming up shortly and I’ve hatched a plan.  Jimmy doesn’t know this yet so if you see her, mum’s the word, but I’ve booked a table for Sophie and me, Jimmy and a bunch of her friends at The Plantation Caribbean Bar & Restaurant in Bristol in a few weekend’s time.  Maybe you’ve been there?  Ackee and Salt Fish, Jerk Chicken and Coconut Pancakes, jugs of Rum Punch and at 10pm on come Dappa Don and The Playaz, Bristol’s best known reggae band.  Now that’s a party.  Bridehead Revisited eat your heart out. 

 

Friday 6th November, 2015

That Strava App I was telling you about the other day, which has got me chasing my demons, nearly landed me in big trouble last Sunday.  There’s a guy called Karl Procter.  I’ve never met him, but he has held the record for a 1.1 mile segment, known by my fellow Strava “athletes” as the Woodland Gallop, for the last four years.  Noone had got near his time in fact.  So I thought I would have a proper crack at it.  I say proper.  Maybe I shouldn’t have had that third bit of toast for breakfast ( smothered with my homemade raspberry jam), but out I went with my only intent being to show Karl, whoever he is, what I was made of. 

It was a bit of a cheat to be honest.  Karl had clocked his stellar time in the course of a 6 mile run.  I however jogged gently to the start of the section and only then put the afterburners on. Just over a mile of undulating, slippery, root-ridden hell ensued, but I made it to the end without breaking an ankle though very much the worse for wear.  The indication that I might have overdone it a bit came when, doubled over and gasping for breath, I was found by three elderly folk.  They had heard, they told me, something akin to a steam engine, puffing and screeching, shattering the otherwise peaceful silence of a Suffolk wood and so concerned were they, they had diverted their walk to check things out.  Nice of them really even if I was a little offended at the time.  

For my part it was all worth it though.  When I got home and synced my watch I found my time of 7 mins 38 seconds had shattered Karl’s record by a full 1 second.  Also that my heart rate had hit 196 in the process.  By all rights I should be deid.  I’ve really got to stop this nonsense and start acting my age. 

Speaking of which I had a rendezvous arranged outside the Scottish Parliament at 6.54am ( dawn up north )  this coming Monday morning with my 21 year old nephew, Angus, who’s reading economics at Edinburgh Uni.  Plan was a quick lap of Holyrood Park and a shimmy up Arthur’s Seat before kippers for breakfast, but he’s chickened out. 

Friday 30th October, 2015

You probably wouldn’t realise it, but to be honest I am slightly twiddling my fingers this afternoon.  I had kept the day reasonably clear as I had hoped to be out of the office on a marsh in Suffolk wild-fowling with Bob.  This was his birthday present bought in an auction to raise money for the Thurlow Hunt, a fine and charitable gesture I made when somewhat under the influence and without the moderating presence of Mrs S. 

 

As it happens I don’t much like the idea of shooting duck.  I may have told you about before about a trip I made back in 1992 when a group of us went to the steppes of Inner Mongolia having collected our shotguns in Beijing which had been flown in circuitously from Paris because a UK/Sino arms embargo existed at the time.  We then travelled by train from Harbin to Qiqihar, a journey made slightly less gruelling by a bottle of malt and a large bar of Toblerone that one of our group had had the foresight to bring along.  I digress.  The point I was trying to get to was that on the very first evening I shot my first ( and only ) duck which, held in the headlight of a rickety Chinese jeep, was revealed as the most beautiful bird I had ever seen.  “Merdre, an elegant silver teal”, our French guide exclaimed.  “I’ve only ever seen three of these in China” ‘e said.  So now there were only two I thought to myself ruefully and, determining not to shoot anymore rare and lovely ducks, spent the rest of the trip playing cards with the locals, smoking dodgy Chinese cigarettes and getting drunk on some pretty rancid beer.  But time moves on and Bob’s enthusiasm for the chase is quite infectious so I thought I would give wildfowling another go.  We’ll see, but for now, the guy who was meant to be taking us on this latest jolly tells me the water levels are still too low and the ducks havn’t arrived,  hence I’m here at the work station and Bob is at home supposedly catching up on his Iliad reading. 

 

Anyway, it doesn’t do one any harm to have the occasional quieter day and it has been a particularly gruelling and busy week.  I am quite exhausted.  Nevertheless I still found the time on Tuesday to come to the rescue of an unfortunate analyst who had flown in the day before on the red eye from HK to Helsinki only to find, when she went to freshen up and put her work clothes on, that her five year old son had changed the combination of her suitcase. 

 

The poor lady failed to find any locksmith in either Finland or Stockholm ( Sweden?? ) who could open it.  Nor was the hotel, when she got to London, able to help.  So it was she turned up for her first meeting with one of my clients on Tuesday morning still in casual clothes and the offending bag in tow.  Clearly increasingly desperate, she was still equally determined not to resort to my suggestion, the obvious one, of forcing the damn thing open.  It was a much treasured and expensive Rimowa.  Her own investigations had identified an outlet in Stratford where, she told me, there was a chance a technician could sort it out.  I didn’t hold up a lot of hope for that.  More to the point I didn’t much fancy the trip.  I occasionally end up in Stratford when I fall asleep on the way into work and miss my stop at Tottenham Hale.  So I determined on a different strategy.  I wheeled the bag back to the office and in between making calls to clients and fielding complicated requests I turned the numbers of the combination lock to 0 0 0 and started meticulously twisting the dial and clicking on a journey through, if it were necessary, to 9 9 9.  A little while later….I don’t really want to say how long in case the boss is reading, suffice to say a blister was starting to form on my thumb….BINGO! The lock sprung open.  What unbridled joy.  I re-set the combination to 8 8 8 which seemed appropriate in the circumstances and emailed my analyst with the happy news.  Got to say my children looked at me askance when I relayed this story to them.  They have their suspicions about what I get up to in the office, but I tell you what, talk about bang for your buck.  Later that day my super generous analyst rolled up with a bottle of Pontet Canet 1998 for my troubles!  One of my favourite wines and how amazingly generous is that?  You lot could take a lesson or two from her.

 

I think I’ll drink it tonight when we get back from watching the Bond film.  Now that is a good idea.

Friday 9th October, 2015

I hate to swank, but I’m now a qualified day skipper.  Go me, though it was by the skin of my teeth I will admit.  My inability to identify vessels by their light configurations at night nearly scuppered me, but luckily Sophie was a bit more au fait in that aspect and at various critical moments was able to mouth to me, behind the teacher’s back, just enough correct answers to lend some credibility to my dubious claims I had covered all the necessary theory work before getting down to the practical.  I was also helped by the fact the other guy on the course knew even less than me and annoyed the instructor by repeatedly heading below in his dripping wet trunks. 

 

Actually that was the least of his problems.  In the space of just twenty minutes when I handed the helm to him, whilst I was desperately trying to identify which lighthouse was which during our night sail, he managed to steer so far off the extremely conservative course I had set that when I came up from the chart table it was pointed out to me that we were heading straight into a cape that we should have been miles clear of.  Fair to say I was kind of implicated in this too, but I redeemed myself “demonstrating great presence of mind and seamanship” (my words) the following night when we were “sheltering” in Port Mahon Marina from the worst storm to hit Menorca in years.  With the boat heeling dramatically from one side to another the 55 MPH winds unzipped the sail cover and when I happened to get up in the middle of the night for a pee, I noticed the mainsail had billowed out of the lazyjacks all over the deck.  I was a sorry sight indeed as I grappled frantically to restore the situation at 2.30am in the driving rain wearing nothing other than a scratchy pair of boxer shorts which the wind was doing its best to further shred.   Nice thought eh? 

 

Changing the subject, the other evening who was I sitting next to at dinner, but the founder and CEO of Hotel Chocolat.  As I often tell you it is life styles of the rich and famous up in Newmarket.  Incidentally, an eagle eyed client sent me a letter published in the FT today which sums it up very well I think. 

 

An idyllic diversion

From Geoffrey Francis, Auckland, New Zealand

 

Sir, Over in England from New Zealand for the Rugby World Cup (October 5), for the first time in 20 years, I ventured to Newmarket for a day at the bloodstock auction sales.

 

People with immaculate manners, tweed caps, purposeful calm, the freedom to smoke, no officials telling anyone where not to go, bonhomie at bars a plenty, not an unshaven face, tattoo, drip-dry white shirt and cheap suit in sight. why isn’t the rest of your country still like this?

 

Geoffrey Francis 

 

Geoffrey obviously hasn’t driven down Newmarket High Street on a Saturday night.  He’d be back to Auckland like a shot with no regret.  Anyway this Chocolat man was a nice guy and the following morning as I wandered round to the stable to see how Lottie, who was meant to be tacking her horse up to go for a ride, was getting on, I thought to myself actually he was probably the best father in the world.  A Dad with his own chain of chocolate shops?  Can it get any better than that?!  I know you would all have enjoyed that same little frisson of pride as I did however, when venturing this opinion to my 14 year old daughter, she replied, “Nope….you’re the best Daddy in the world”.  I modestly demurred.  But she insisted.  “Oh, no, you definitely are, because, Daddy, you’re going to go back round to the house and get my saddle. Off you go now.”

 

And talking of hobnobbing it and disrespectful children I went to an art exhibition on Wednesday.  The snap I took below was the cheapest work on offer and one of very few in which the subject had any clothes on.  Even though I’d had a few glasses of Prosecco and the artist was giving half the sale proceeds to charity my close shave bidding for four NZ v Namibia RWC tickets meant I had the presence of mind to send a message home to the powers that be for their opinion before splashing out the largesse. I’m not sure the artist would be too pleased with Hen’s response so mums the word.

 

 

 

PS.  The weekend before last, just hours after he had arrived home for a leave out weekend, Bob sent me a picture of him with his dog standing proudly in front of three grey squirrels laid out on the field.  Intriguingly he told me he had dispatched these nasty vermins using a traditional San tribe hunting technique.  If you were the squeamish sort you would have abandoned this email many moons ago, but even so I can’t really bring myself to spell out on paper what precisely was involved.  Suffice to say it didn’t involve guns or spears and the dogs role was somewhat peripheral.  I defy you to work this thorny conundrum out for yourselves.  Never in a month of Sundays.

Friday 25th September, 2015

You probably don’t think of me as a particularly competitive sort do you?  But some serious madness has taken hold of me this week.  I bought a Garmin watch and downloaded Strava onto my phone and I’ve turned into a beast.  Whereas I used to occasionally drag myself out for a run, these were relatively gentle affairs, even if sometimes reasonably long, but now…quite different.  This little gizmo tracks what you are doing, measures your heart beat, beeps urgently at you and compares sections of your run with what all the other nutters in the vicinity have achieved on a public leaderboard with the person at the top of the list getting a little gold crown to wear.  Thus ( I know I sound like Chris Wood ) I am now charging around the countryside like a man possessed.  I nearly killed myself on Wednesday evening when I managed to get into 2^nd place on a “segment” appropriately named the Woodland Gallop.  Karl Procter, whoever you are, I’m coming for you first thing tomorrow morning.  

 

It doesn’t stop there though.   Rekindled is my ambition to hit that 2 mins 30 secs target for the 800m which I set myself all those years back.  Remember I had hoped to have a crack at it with Seb Coe in Japan at our conference a couple of years back, but that didn’t work out so I’ve lined up a 22 year old from our Mumbai office who tells me he can run a 400m in 61 secs to act as pacemaker.  Oh, and, even though I had promised my mother I wouldn’t,  I’ve signed up to run the Race to the Stones ultramarathon again next year.  Madness. 

 

So, as I told you, I am away next week doing my Day Skipper Practical course.  I really hope they don’t probe too much on whether I have already tackled the theory bit of it.  I tried, I really did, these last few weeks, but it’s hard, managing the intellectual challenge of my day-job with the requirement of learning, just to pick one small example, how to differentiate 35 different light configurations on a variety of different vessels.  Along with a pair of nautical socks, a green one for the left foot and a red one for the right, my parents also sent me a rather sweet little photograph of us three brothers sailing out into in the Arabian Ocean off the coast of Oman.  I suppose it might have been sent helpfully to be used if proof were needed that I sailed from an early age.  Alas, taken in 1974, it shows a fine disregard for health and safety, and the other problem is I’m the one sitting uselessly in the middle of the boat.  Evidence only, that even then, despite being the eldest so I should at least have insisted we all wore life jackets, I was just there for the ride.  Fair to say heading down to Menorca tomorrow my cup brimmeth not over with confidence!

 

PS Just had a phone call from Bob heading home for the weekend.  “Quick.  Put a tenner on Lavender Lane on the 1.55 at Newmarket.  We’re giving the owner’s kids a lift.”  Rocked in last.  See what I’m dealing with??

Friday 18th September, 2015

So I was in Shanghai last week. See below.  Although pulling a 2.00am-er on the first night was a punchy start to proceedings for an old boy, after that I behaved quite well I felt.  Furthermore after a long barren spell I managed to select one decent restaurant, albeit sandwiched between two moderate choices on Tuesday and Thursday.  My new favourite food is Yunnan.  The restaurant’s name, Lost Heaven, not to mention the size of the bill, has caused eyebrows of senior management to rise as I have submitted my expenses, but it was all above board needless to say.

 

I say I behaved responsibly.  Perhaps I let myself down a bit on the Thursday night.  I seem to recall a strange point late that evening when, embarrassingly, I didn’t quite manage to do the 40 press ups I had said I could do on the floor of some bar we found ourselves in.   And wow I had a close shave the following morning sleeping through my alarm.  A ray of sunshine sneaking through the blinds stirred me and then, miraculously, a phone call from reception shocked me frantically into action.  The taxi driver taking me to the airport caught the mood of the moment and our drive was a considerably bigger adrenaline rush than the Maglev which a client and I had used to get into town on arrival.  I wasn’t feeling 100%, but I imagine we travelling pretty much the same speed as the bullet train too.  Consequently I got to the airport in fine time and even had the wherewithal of mind to photograph a dustbin in the departure lounge which I attach.  The obviously literal labelling on the bin caused me to ponder a while what it was actually meant for till a dry witted client settled the issue by suggesting it would be a handy place in which to deposit IPO documentation from the locality.

 

And so the first weekend of normality for a while approaches with just three of us at home.  Hen has gone back down to the Ardeche camping illegally on a secluded bank by the river periodically sending WhatsApp messages reassuring us she is safe and well, including in one a video she took of herself the worse for wear after two demi-carafes of rose.  She is to be joined down there on Saturday by the new boyfriend I told you about the other day.  Remember?  He was coming to dinner.  Nice boy.  Even though he called me Dave.  And as I write Jimmy is on a bus making her way to Amsterdam to get up to what I dare not even think about.  Bob is back at school though I’m in a bit of sulk with him today truth be told.  This evening he should have been at the opening ceremony of the Rugby World Cup in which I gather his school has a starring role.  I had imagined him playing the part of William Webb Ellis dressed in long white trousers, a funny cap and strange socks, picking up a football and running the length of the pitch in front of 70,000 people, but could I persuade him to go back two days early for rehearsals?  Not surprisingly…I could not.

Friday 14th August, 2015

Funerals are difficult events and you can end up blethering inanely caught up in all the tension and emotion of the occasion.  But I thought I was on safe ground as I chatted with Hen.  She had come with us to a service on Wednesday to commemorate the life of my brother’s father in law who had died after a long illness.  I can’t quite recall what I was talking to her about outside Salisbury Crematorium on a warm, sultry afternoon.  It might have been a bit mundane I suppose. Perhaps the options for the route back to Suffolk.  M3 or M4, round the M25 and up the M11; that sort of thing.  But it really didn’t deserve this cruel put down in front of the assembled company of fellow mourners:

 

“Dave….I can feel my eyes closing a wee bit and if you carry on like this it could get dangerous….I’m standing up you know”.